Here I blog about writing, editing, reading, books, submissions, freelancing, getting published (and rejected), journalism, revisions, life after the MFA, teaching writing, and living the writer's life. Welcome. BUT -- if you are a writer: Write first, read blogs second.

> In two weeks, I'll give a presentation and be on a panel at HippoCamp2015, a Conference for Creative Nonfiction Writers (Lancaster, PA). There's still time to register, and using the code HippoFriend, you'll save $25. (Some less-than-full-conference registration options are also available upon request.) Not long ago, I interviewed conference organizer (founder/editor of Hippocampus Magazine) Donna Talarico.

> Cathy C. Hall shares some tips on getting the most from a short (in this case, three-day) writing retreat.

> While I teach in an MFA program, I also think the degree is not for every writer; that not every good writer needs or wants one. In this account at The Millions, a non-MFA writer examines his reasons for skipping it (and the article is jammed with other interesting links, too.)

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Over
at Facebook, this pops up from time to time: The 10 Books That Changed Your
Life. I'm often tagged to chime in, and have always conveniently
"forgotten". For me that top 10 list changes year to
year, sometimes month to month. What I think "changed my life" at 12
fell off the list by 20, what moved me enormously at 30 slid away when I tried
to re-read it at 40. And so on. Plus – changed my life how? Which life?
My reading life? My entire life? My life as a writer?

Recently
though I saw it worded slightly differently: The 10 books that have stayed with you. I interpret that as the ones I keep remembering, the
ones I find myself opening at random and reading from the middle of for no reason at
all, the ones that are perhaps more meaningful not because they are the finest
literature ever produced, but because I read them at a time in my life when I
was especially open to the story, or the writing, or both.

I've
left off the true classics all writers admire and return to, and I'm
probably forgetting some marvelous contemporary soon-to-be-classics, but I've limited
my list to modern books I've read in the last 15 years or so—and the ones I can remember distinctly and with pleasure, and without walking over to my bookshelves. I've mixed the genres together. And I went way over 10. Hey, it's my list and
I'll do what I want with it!

Living Out Loud – Anna Quindlen

The
Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster

The
Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

Mountain
City – Gregory Martin

Blue
Peninsula – Madge McKeithen

In
Revere, In Those Days – Roland Merullo

Small
Wonders – Barbara Kingsolver

The
Opposite of Fate – Amy Tan

Sleepless
Days – Sue Kushner Resnick

The
History of Love – Nicole Krauss

Picturing
the Wreck – Dani Shapiro

Expecting
Adam – Martha Beck

The
Dogs of Babel – Carolyn Parkhurst

Swimmer
in the Secret Sea – William Kotzwinkle

Manhattan
Memoir – Mary Cantwell

We
Didn't Come Here for This – William B. Patrick

Making
Toast – Roger Rosenblatt

A
Slant of Sun – Beth Kephart

Here
if You Need Me – Kate Braestrup

I
Married You for Happiness – Lily Tuck

The
Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

Without a Map – Meredith Hall

Eclectic, yes? Sure. I'm also sure this is incomplete, which I'll realize and clap my forehead for, as soon as I get up from where I'm
sitting in my bedroom composing this post, and wander into my office and
scan my bookshelves. Or tomorrow, when I read a new book and then can't stop
thinking about it for a week or month or year. Or maybe this evening when I plan to
read Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, who passed away yesterday (and which I somehow
never read).

Do
you have a list like this? One that would make no sense to anyone but you? A
list of books, which although they are excellent books – probably signals as
much or more about you, and who you
were when you first read it, and why you keep picking it up again -- than about the book itself? I'd love to hear
(especially if we have a book in common)!

Friday, July 10, 2015

> Ever read pieces by different writers that share a specific theme/subject, and you wish you could ask both writers about them? Joe Bonomo noticed essays in two different journals that each pivot on a particularly disturbing summer, and so he invited Ann Hood and Marcia Aldrich to a joint interview.

> Finally, these "Depressing Graphs for Writers," by Rebecca Makkai at the Ploughshares blog, are just what you need to complete a summer Friday (when you may already be tempted to quit working at noon or take the day off or pour the wine early...)

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

By now, I haven't ridden horses on a regular basis for more than 20 years. But the 20 years before were spent riding every day, competing, and writing about horses. The people in that equestrian life were so important to me, then. Which is why, when one of my "horse friends" disappeared, the departure was deeply unsettling, haunting me for many years, for decades.

I first tried writing about that fracture nearly 10 years ago, then put away the crappy draft for a long time. At various times, I'd rework that draft, bury it, forget about it, start fresh, decide to skip it, pull it out, start all over, drop it again. All that time, there was a certain urgency missing.

But something about the story clicked for me last fall so I revised and sent it out. One editor's personal rejection note helped me understand a flaw in the piece, so I took another whack at it. Then I asked a trusted writer friend to read it. Her single piece of very intelligent advice (about structure) nudged me toward the final revision.

"When I moved back and settled in an apartment near her house, I returned to our old stable and trainer, but Nancy never visited me there, though I spent chunks of days at the barn where she’d moved her horses.

One chilled spring night she and I met a plane at the nearest major airport, where a flight attendant passed us a sealed medical bucket, a tube of high-priced semen from a champion dressage horse inside. We drove an hour back to Nancy’s stable, freezing because we blasted the air conditioning to keep the sperm active, and when we arrived, I held her mare’s tail aside as Nancy inserted the baster-like syringe. Eleven months later, we slept on horse blankets tossed over hay bales, taking turns to check on that mare every twenty minutes, and I was the one who first spotted the steaming foal in the straw.

Perhaps experiences like this seduced me into thinking we might stay bound, for a long time, forever..."

You can read the full story here. (And if you're so inclined, it would be wonderful if you could leave a comment and/or click on like over at the FGP page! Thanks.)Image: Flickr/Creative Commons, AnemoneProjectors

Monday, June 29, 2015

I
would like to say that a few years ago, I was first drawn to Hippocampus Magazine because it
presented so many wonderful pieces of creative nonfiction. Truth is, as a
former rider and equestrian journalist, I simply wanted to know why their logo
was a seahorse.
Quickly, I came to love the journal for their essays, memoir, and narratives,
and discovered many new-to-me writers there. Hippocampus is presenting its first conference this August,
three days of CNF-centric celebration
and education. Donna Talarico, founder
and publisher, has been busy putting
everything in place, but agreed to answer my nosy questions.

Q: How far in advance
did you start planning? Was it something you always wanted to do and were
waiting for the right time? Why this summer?

A: Preparation began in August 2014. I’ve always wanted to
extend the Hippocampus community into what we on the Internet call “IRL” – in
real life! But I didn’t want to rush to do it. A conference was in the
long-term plans, and I wanted to wait until we had a solid following and
reputation to take on something of this caliber. 2015 is our fifth year, so it
made sense to do it this year, and I gave us a year lead time to plan.

Q: When you've attended
other conferences, were you quietly taking in intel for when it was your turn?
Any great examples you want to emulate?

A: I’ve been active on the speaker circuit in the web/content
marketing world for about seven years or so, first in eCommerce and then in
higher education. I absolutely LOVE conferences; they were always the highlight
of my career. Being inspired as an attendee, being the inspiration as a
presenter.

The conference I’ve
modeled HippoCamp after is HighEdWeb.
I have not been energized more than when I am at these conferences, with brilliant,
dynamic people. The programming is filled with variety and information and fun,
and that’s exactly what I wanted to capture, only with writers instead of web
geeks. (But a lot of web geeks also are writers! Like me.) I guess you could
say I was taking in intel without realizing I was doing so… so I was taking
notes on paper about the content, but taking mental notes about all the “what
ifs” if I were to do this myself.

Q: What was the response to the call for presentation
proposals? [Disclosure from Lisa: I submitted two proposals, one
was accepted.] How did you make choices?
Was it a committee? What swayed, or dissuaded?

A: For the first year, I believe we had a great response to
proposals. People are still, to this day, asking if they can present (now that
the conference has really gained some traction), so I know next year will bring
a lot more proposal submissions from the get-go. Unfortunately, proposals are
closed, but I am loving the interest and want to remind these enthusiastic
folks to look out for our 2016 call for submissions, which will go out in mid
to late August 2015.

We have a programming committee, and just like with magazine
submissions, the proposals were vetted by a diverse group of people and voted
on – yes, no, comments. I like to think of the audience first, so we chose
sessions that would be of value to the attendees and tried to have variety or
ones that would have more “mass” appeal that also fit the three tracks as well
as the style we’re looking for in the conference--engaging, interactive. Some
proposal topics overlapped with others, and some were a little too narrow of a
focus for a small conference – so basically, it was a balancing act. And just
like an editor never likes to turn away a great story, we couldn’t pick everything
submitted.

Q: To me, conferences held
where a journal or organization is headquartered offer not just local flavor,
but something more -- conference personnel are welcoming attendees to their
home. Did you ever consider holding HippoCamp anywhere other than Lancaster,
PA? What does the location offer
writers?

A: No. Lancaster
it was! Being an online magazine means you really don’t have a true physical
presence, but literary citizenship is important to me, so it made sense for
me—and HippoCamp—to be part of the community I call home. Plus, Lancaster is a
really vibrant city and I like giving small towns love—I do love traveling to
larger cities to conferences but the pitstops I
make along the way always prove to be really eye-opening (example: I
drove from PA to Minneapolis for AWP and hit all these cool places along the
way).

I think there should be more exploration of these gems of
cities, like Lancaster, for gatherings. Not just in the writing world, but in
general. On our conference blog, Erin Dorney and Tyler Barton from a local
literary group, The Triangle, have written a few blog posts that
talk about why Lancaster is a
great town for writers. So, to me, HippoCamp is both
sharing information and sharing a slice of life.

Q:
In an article in The Writer, about first-time
conference organizers, you are quoted, “I want
it to be affordable and a good value, and make back the money. We’ll break
even, or if there is extra money, it will go to next year’s conference.” How are you approaching meeting that goal?

A: I was so honored to be included in Melissa Hart’s article
in The Writer. To explain that
comment a little more, I wanted to make sure I priced it right for attendees,
and then I also set an attendance goal, based on that rate, that would meet the
financial commitment to the convention center. We’re just a small conference
committee, and we didn’t hire anyone externally. I did talk to other conference
organizers, and I do sit on a conference committee for an industry
organization, so that’s been a world of help.

Q: I noticed you're
planning on an open mic, and other ways for attendees to extend their
participation. Can you talk about some of that?

A: I love love love when there is excitement in the air
during the whole conference. I can’t
imagine a conference ending when the last session of the day is over. So I made
sure that there was built in time to converse and engage in a more laid back
setting—so much of the conference magic doesn’t happen in the lecture hall. No,
it happens in the nooks and crannies of the hotel, or out on the town as new
connections become what seems like old friends. These more informal
opportunities to get together allow that to happen; and sometimes it’s not even
the organized social events, but the spontaneous stuff that happens, like,
“Hey, let’s go grab coffee before the readings...” moments.

Of course an open mic night is a little more structured than
those organic moments I just mentioned, but this also lets others from the
conference—those who didn’t give a session or sit on a panel—to have a moment
to share, and shine.

Two other social activities are breakfast topic tables, which
allow attendees to grab breakfast and then look for a table with a topic card –
social media, editing, POV, etc. – and then sit there and spark conversation
around that. (Don’t worry; not every breakfast table will have a topic because
I know that there are those that just need coffee before they can form
sentences, haha.)

It’s important to have ways for people to connect. While
we’re in a session, learning, we’re giving our attention to the speaker and
we’re quiet, strangers in a room. There needs to be space and time to open
people up!

Q: When I look at the line-up, I'm awed by some star power (Lee Gutkind, Jane Friedman), and intrigued
by names that are unfamiliar, but whose topic is so interesting, I'm eager to sit
in their sessions. (I'm sure I fall squarely into the 'who is she?' category
myself.) How did you approach putting together the mix?

A: I don’t want to use the term underdog here, but I root for
anyone that has passion and is maybe brilliant in his or her circles, but never
had the chance to strut their stuff in front of others. Giving someone that
first shot boosts confidence and could help propel someone into their platform.
Just as it’s important to have new voices in a lit mag or on book shelves, we
need fresh faces at conferences like this.

Everyone has successes (or failures) to share, so balancing
experienced speakers with new voices just makes sense to me. To be honest, it’s
really the topics and caliber of the proposal that sells it for me, not the
name of the presenter, although when you’re a new conference like we are, it
does make sense to have names some might know—especially when it comes to the
keynotes.

Q: I notice it's
mostly individuals and not panels presenting, as is the case at so many writing
conferences. Any special reason why?

A: Oh yes. I’m SO glad you asked this, Lisa. First of all,
“as is the case at so many…” means a lot to me. When I take on a project, I try
to find gaps to fill and ways to be different enough to stand out, yet familiar
enough to be comfortable. As I answered in another question earlier, I modeled
HippoCamp after the conference format that’s most exhilarating for me.

There is something so special about being in a room with one
person standing in the front igniting the audience with his or her passion. I
love TedTalks, for example. The classroom-style session, to me, is so engaging.
It allows the presenter to illustrate (as in with visual aids) that expertise –
to show, not just tell. I love when a speaker works the room and when a speaker
walks us through a case study or something they’ve worked on; it’s energizing.

I prefer that type of learning to a group of people sitting
and taking turns talking, although there is merit in that as well. So I varied
up the format. I balanced all-conference panels featuring larger, overarching
topics with break-out sessions on more specific topics. I think this format prevents
conference fatigue and gives people a chance to be in a room that just lights
up.

Q:
You're about seven or so weeks out from the conference. Are you excited? Worried?
Both?

A: There is such a vibe and energy about the
conference, and I’m hoping that it continues to be contagious among the writing
community. I'm mostly excited, but we’re still a little shy of our attendance
goal so I’d be lying if I said there weren’t nerves too. There is still room. (I’m talking to YOU, dear reader.
And you. And you.) The actual capacity of our reserved space exceeds our
conference goal, so even if we did hit that magic number, there would be room
left. We want a packed house. (Note: see below for discount.)

Q: Hippocampus Magazine has a wonderful
following and reputation online among creative nonfiction writers as a place to
read CNF, and a destination goal to publish work. How does the conference and
the journal interact?

A: Thank you for that! We’re thrilled with our following. Our
three-fold mission is to entertain, educate, and engage readers and writers of
creative nonfiction. The conference fulfills all three of those points, but,
really, I think of “educate” the most.

Many of the conference volunteers and several of the
presenters are on the Hippocampus staff and/or were published in our magazine,
so HippoCamp is an extension of the relationships we’ve built over the years,
but also it has introduced us to new friends and partners. The momentum of the
magazine certainly helps fuel the energy of the conference, but, at the same
time, people are learning about our journal for the first time by way of the
conference. It’s neat to see these connections form.

I already have ideas for next year about how the conference
and magazine can play off one another even more!

Q: What else have you done to differentiate the conference
and deliver additional options for conference goers?

A: We're offering pre-
and post-conference workshops as add-ons; people can start their HippoCamp
experience early with an editing or a writing and movement workshop (the
collage essays one is already sold out), or extend it with a query-writing
workshop. These intensive, interactive classes can complement the rest of the
conference, but I made them optional add-ons because I wanted to squeeze in as
much amazing content as I could during the regular programming.

Again, I borrowed this idea from HighEdWeb where I always add
on an extra workshop (and I’m giving one this year!), and it was SO valuable to
get access to an expert in his or her field for a few hours and to work on
something practical.

Note from Lisa:Donna
would like to offer my blog readers a $20 discount on HippoCamp2015 conference registration.
Use code: ROMEOWRITES at the
conference registration page.

> As the resident writer in the family, do you "ghostwrite" relatives' and friends' remarks (eulogies, toasts, etc.)? Hey, there's a business plan for that.

> Have you seen Manuscript Wish List yet? It's where some agents tell us what queries would make them happy, from the expected ("more upmarket fiction") to the highly specific, ("a nonfiction book proposal on women in the circus.")

> Susan Shapiro's article, "9 Ways to a Faster Book Deal," is packed with useful information. (The way I read it, "faster" here doesn't only mean speedier, but a smarter, more strategic, more likely to succeed path to publication; but maybe that's just me.)

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

So many places to submit writing. So many places to (hopefully) see it published. Hundreds, maybe thousands of venues.

Overwhelming is the word I hear most often from fellow writers--and the word that buzzes in my brain often enough, too.

To combat feeling paralyzed by choice, I just keep moving along, trying to learn, adjusting my submission strategy (not even sure I'd call it a strategy, maybe more a process), making mistakes, figuring out what's important to me (intelligent editing, respect for the work, an indication that the venue won't disappear), what I want to avoid (snooty precious attitudes), and what's a bonus (venues that promote their writers, are connected to some bigger literary project/cause).

One thing that helps me is to have a small number in mind. For me it's six. I want a list of six possible submission venues for each piece, to start. On the whole (considering that I so often simultaneously submit), those six should be places I'd be equally happy to see the work appear.

Usually there's a number one pick at the top, and I will sometimes exclusively submit there first and wait a few weeks (or only a few days if it's a newsy, timely piece). But then I move on to the next five. Having a finite number on a list is, for me, the way to narrow down the hundreds of venues to a few I can hold in my mind. As soon as that initial batch of sim subs go out, I choose the next six, put them on the spreadsheet, and wait. When rejections arrive, another submission goes out, so at all times, I have six submissions (for each individual piece of work) always in the pipeline.

But even with all that, mostly I follow my nose. Usually, it doesn't let me down, though there have been a few stinkers.

I start with the venues I read regularly, and hunger after. But--I am honest with myself: not everything I write merits submitting to my wish list. Depending on the piece, I add those venues that I have read and admire, those that writer-friends have been published in, those that I've discovered via a link and liked, venues that I remember with
a fondness. In any case, no matter how I found a venue, there has to be a feeling of, I'd like to see my work there too.

Sometimes I'm more tactical and set out on a deliberate search. I look for venues that publish only particular subjects, that want pieces with certain themes, that are prominent in a particular area of the country, that serve a particular readership.

Then there's my *stalking* approach.

I happen across a writer whose work I like, a writer who, for any variety of reasons, gives me the sense that we're at roughly the same level of ...something. Something sort of unnameable. Not writing skill exactly; something more slippery. Maybe it's aesthetic, or publication achievement, or career trajectory; maybe it's sensibility, or style, or ...whatever it is, it's something I don't completely understand myself, but I know it when I read it. When I read that person's work, a gong goes off: this is a writer whose work is in the "same lane" as mine. Something about this other writer's work tells me: follow. And so I do.

I read the writer's bio at the end of the piece carefully, noting where else she/he has been published. I go to the writer's website for a fuller list of publishing credits, past and forthcoming. Then I set about investigating those other venues, reading, considering, evaluating, sometimes eliminating; but most of the time, I come away with the feeling that confirms what I intuitively sensed in the first place: if this is a good venue for X's work, it's a good place for mine. Those venues then usually wind up on my "submit to in future" list, one of the first six, or the second six. Or the third. Or...

I've done this at least a half dozen times, and mostly had good luck getting acceptances.

I don't think I'm unique in this way. I've heard other writers tell a version of this story. And of course, over on Facebook, where I'm a member of many *super secret* pages where writers share submission intel (and, I'm guessing, quietly *stalk* one another's publications), it's no secret.

This sometimes makes for apparent serendipity. I've had writer acquaintances message me to say, Hey, I see you're in X this month...I was published there a few months ago.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Every December 31, I make a secret list: places I'd like to see my essays published in the coming year. Sometimes, it actually happens. That's the case with Hippocampus Magazine, an online home for (only) creative nonfiction, a journal I have always admired.When the editor accepted "Going Through Your Things/Superhero" (an excerpt from my memoir-in-essays manuscript) in late January, she suggested publishing in June to coincide with Father's Day.

This somewhat unusual essay began as fragments in my head eight years ago in my father's home office the week after he died. I spent several hours looking through the things he kept on his desk and shelves, his drawers, files, and closet. That day, I learned some things, about how I thought of him when I was a child, teenager, and young adult--and about myself (not all of it pretty or tidy).

It begins this way:

I am going through your things, Dad, and there is the black and white Kodak picture with the curly edges, me on Thunder, just a Sunday morning at the pony rides.

Oh Daddy, please take me for a pony ride; please, Daddy, wake up; it’s Sunday morning; let’s go; you promised to take me to the pony rides. Daddy, can I please have riding lessons; Aunt Louise said she’d take me when she takes Shelly; it’s only once a week, okay, Daddy? I got straight As again, Dad, so that’s $5 each, right? Dad, look at these cool new shoes I got at the store on the ship Mommy and Cathy and I took to France this summer. Hey Dad, can we go to a Broadway play for my birthday this year; thanks, Dad; and can I bring four of my friends, too; thanks. Dad, will you get tickets for me and AnnaMarie to the David Bowie concert, the Elton John concert, Beach Boys, Chicago, Frampton, Three Dog Night, the Steve Miller Band. Cool; thanks, Dad.

* * *

When I was a child, and even through most of my teenage years, even when I was convinced he was a hopelessly old-fashioned dolt, my father seemed to be able to get anything done. Tickets to any event. The son of a friend out of a parking ticket. A nephew out of jail. A new toy every store was sold out of. Broken stuff fixed, in the house, car, factory. In touch with someone important, maybe even famous. The back story. The back way to get somewhere. The right thing to say. How to convince someone to do, or make, or arrange something they didn’t want to do or make or arrange. Reservations, when every seat or room or table or flight was booked and had been booked for months. The right amount to tip. Which person to tip, and the way to fold the bill and when to offer it and how.

I am going through your things, Dad, and here is the canceled check for...

By now, I haven't ridden horses on a regular basis for more than 20 years. But the 20 years before were spent riding every day, compet...

My Writing Life

I am primarily a nonfiction writer -- literary and personal essays, journalism, memoir, humor, reviews, and more. My work appears in print and online media, literary journals, and essay collections. I write and publish a bit of poetry, too, and am experimenting with short stories.

I am part of the founding faculty and teach creative nonfiction in the Bay Path University (Massachusetts) online MFA program. I also teach closer to home at Montclair State University (NJ), with The Writers Circle, and previously taught at Rutgers University. I teach and coach privately online and in person, too.

I also work as a freelance writer, literary journal editor, independent manuscript editor, writing coach, editorial consultant, ghostwriter. In other words -- hire me! In former lives, I was an equestrian journalist, a public relations specialist, an editor for a hyperlocal news site, and a real estate spy (don't ask).

I have a BS in journalism (Syracuse), and an MFA in creative nonfiction (Stonecoast/University of Southern Maine). Like every other writer I know, I am at work on too many projects all at once. That's what I love about the writing and freelance life.

My husband once read this section and remarked that I don't mention anything about my family, so: I am the mother of two sons -- a college student and a high schooler. I have been married for 27 years to the boy I first fell for at age 12. Too bad he didn't fall for me for another 13 years. There honey, happy now?